1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a navigation technology, particularly to an automatic ultrasonic and computer-vision navigation device and a method using the same.
2. Description of the Related Art
More than twenty years has elapsed since the emergence of robots. The current developments of robots are usually directed to the publications thereof. The industrial robots have been fully developed to have high reliability and are still progressing. The entertainment- or service-type robots also have much potential in such as security, exposition guide, children nursing service, etc., and they are usually called the intelligent robots because they are expected to behave like human beings. Thus, the image recognizing, tracing and positioning technologies are critical for the intelligent robots.
Below are briefly cited some prior arts of the ultrasonic and computer-vision technologies for the intelligent robots. Among them, the Taiwan patent No. I242701 lacks local navigation ability. The Taiwan patent No. I147185 and the US patent publication No. 20060199108 adopt a laser radar, which harms eyes and has a price several times higher than an ultrasonic sensor, wherefore ordinary families are hard to afford it. The US publication patent No. 20060136097 has a low hardware cost, but it needs an additional light emitter to enable a vehicle to receive light and locate the position indoors. The US patent publication No. 20070199108 has a navigation function, but it cannot follow the user to construct a navigation map. The US patent publication No. 20040199292 only emphasizes a technology enabling a robot to follow the user. The US patent publication No. 20040028260 emphasizes a technology obtaining instructions from analyzing the images of the user's movements, but it does not apply the technology to enable the robot to learn a path. The Taiwan patent publication No. 200810588 uses a pan/tilt/zoom (PTZ) image capture device to trace a moving object. The Taiwan patent publication No. 200818032 can perform image recognition. The Taiwan patent publication No. 200709075 can detect and recognize human faces. The Taiwan patent No. 266474 proposes a camera structure for recognizing human faces. The Taiwan patent No. I95162 can grasp the features of human faces from images. The Taiwan patent No. I267793 proposes an editable image feature comparison method. However, all the abovementioned technologies can neither eliminate the interference from reflected light nor enhance the colors. The Taiwan patent No. 191309 uses a software technology to compensate images; however, it has two disadvantages: firstly, it can only compensate the images of human faces; secondly, it cannot compensate images unless the light interference is moderate or less. In other words, the technology can neither find out the approximate curved surfaces nor compensate the images unless the computer vision technology can find out human-face regions from the original images.
The Taiwan patent No. M33678 makes use of wireless network communication. The Taiwan patent No. I292109 uses a wired or wireless transmission to update the security data of robots. In the Taiwan patent No. I287498, a robot uses a wireless module to receive instructions. In the Taiwan patent No. I238622, the control system of a robot can undertake an Ethernet communication or a wireless network communication. The Taiwan patent No. 542739 uses an infrared technology to transmit positioning data and distance data for robots. In some of the abovementioned prior-art patents, for example, the patents of No. I283978 and No. I277320, the data is too massive to be transmitted by the available bandwidth. In some of the abovementioned prior-art patents, for example, the patents of No. M33678, No. I292109 and No. I238622, the Inventors did not take into consideration the fact that the communication system depends on the roaming and repeating capabilities in a vast space. Some of the abovementioned prior-art patents focus on information exchange and the optimization thereof, but they are all static WDS (Wireless Distribution System), which lack an automatic navigation function, cannot move according to instructions, and are unable to provide communication service for users.
Thus, the present invention proposes an automatic ultrasonic and computer-vision navigation device and a method using the same, which are based on image tracing, image comparing, human-face detection, position measuring, path planning, and ultrasonic technologies, and which can learn visual landmarks automatically, optimize the path from a narrow passage, and detect positions and amend the track visually, whereby even the persons not familiar with the computer can also instruct the navigation device and interact with the navigation device.